REVIEW: The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore

I loved The Price of Innocence. And, I expect to get grief from a few for doing so. The relationship between your leads, Jack and Sherrie, begins with what could be called at best forced seduction and what will be seen by some as rape. This trope makes many crazy. Before I began writing this review, I read a great Smart Bitch column about rape in romance and marveled at all the ways readers see this dynamic. I thought about how I see it and why. The truth is I often like forced seduction in my romances. As I’ve written elsewhere at Dear Author, I spent much of my teenage years in the 1970’s reading bodice rippers—I still have my well-thumbed copies of Sweet Savage Love and The Wolf and the Dove. For me, there can be a sensual power when one’s control is taken away. Not all forced seduction stories work for me, but, many do. I found the bond between Jack and Sherrie to be blazing—I am deeply fond of blazing—and I was truly drawn into their story.

The book is set in 1880’s Victorian England. Sherrie Hamilton has come to England from America where she’s been living with her eight-year old daughter, Minnie. Sherrie is a young, wealthy widow who has no interest in marrying again. She’s come to London with her aunt and her two younger cousins, Faith and Daisy, the latter of whom are looking for titled Brits to wed. At a party, Sherrie is introduced to Jack, the Earl of PenMartyn. When she sees him, she is instantly, powerfully drawn to him. He reminds of her of someone she’s sure he can’t be, Cullum Rourke, the pirate who, nine years ago, saved her from Malaysian slavers only to take her for himself.

Jack, though, knows instantly that Sherrie Hamilton is his Scheherazade, the eighteen year old girl (he was twenty-four) he had to have from the moment he saw her and whom he kept for three months. Jack’s and Sherrie’s past is shown in flashbacks and each and every one of them is infused with desire and pure passion. Here’s the scene when they first speak. Jack has just freed Sherrie from a cage where she’d been imprisoned by slavers who planned to sell her white-skinned virginity for a great price.

His men gathered around as he pulled the girl out for a closer look.

“Thank you!” she said.

“Don’t.”

Their gazes met, locked, then she looked away, her cheeks bright red. He knew what she’d seen in his eyes. After a long moment she laughed, the tone musical, as clear and sharp as the salt wind that caught the sound and blew it out to sea. It was a brave laugh, slightly mad, defiant, yet reflecting the fear he’d seen in her blue eyes. Beautiful eyes set in a perfect oval face. It had been a long time since he’d seen a blue-eyed woman. Longer still since he’d had one.

He moved closer as he touched her cheek. He breathed in the scent of her as he ran his thumb across the ugly blue-green bruise that marked where someone had hit her. Her skin was warm, soft, flawless. Only a fool would mar it. He wanted to touch it, taste it everywhere, possess it.

“You’re not here to rescue me, are you?”

“No.”

She laughed again. The bright, bitter sound enchanted him. This was not a weak, hysterical spirit. There was nothing fragile to her beauty, despite the exquisite perfection of form and face. She laughed in hell, and that made her priceless to him.

He ran his fingers through her hair. “The price of innocence,” he said, “is what someone is willing to pay to destroy it.”

Jack makes a devil’s bargain with Sherrie. He won’t sell her himself in exchange for her being his willing slave for a month. He takes her to his cabin, she demands they both bathe, they do, and then he begins to touch her.

“You’ll grow to crave it.” Their bodies were perfectly fitted together, skin on skin, but he rose to his knees as he spoke so he could look at her. He hadn’t had her yet. He hadn’t even begun to have her yet, though he’d spent a long time touching her, tasting her, before laying her down on the bed. He’d never waited so long to take a woman before, never wanted to savor like this, to wait and make the roaring need grow into consuming fire. It was agonizing.

He wanted to see the agony and the fire in her eyes before granting them both any release.

So, instead of burying himself inside her, he made himself wait, watch, speak. Her hair was spread out in heavy gold waves across the pillows. Her creamy skin gleamed with a faint sheen of sweat, pale against the black silk bed coverings. He cupped her breasts, smiled as the peaks rose at the soft brush of his thumbs. Her breasts were full and so very soft. He watched avidly as her hands curled at her sides, bunching the black silk in her fists. The triumph of making her want him shot through him, hot as lust, almost as satisfying. “You crave me already.”

She does indeed and the two spend—shown in flashbacks—three months as obsessive lovers. Then, one night, Jack sends Sherrie away. She doesn’t know why he makes her leave; he doesn’t know she’s pregnant with his child. Nine years later, Sherrie hates Cullum, not because he raped her but because he abandoned her. Because of Cullum, she married another man—fortunately he managed to get himself shot in a card game early in their marriage—in order to give her daughter legitimacy. Because of Cullum, she’s lost all desire for men—she’s felt nothing from a man’s touch since the day Cullum sent her away.

Sherrie doesn’t recognize Jack the first time she sees him in London—she won’t let herself believe he could be Cullum. But the second time they meet, she realizes the civilized, handsome, wealthy, socially feted Earl of PenMartyn is indeed the pirate from her past, the only man she’s ever loved, and the father of her child. She’s undone, full of rage and need, and determined to never let him ruin her life again. For his part, Jack’s mood becomes so black he considers suicide. His guilt for what he did to her is overwhelming. He can think of nothing but making love to her again and that makes him loathe himself even more. Both are miserable and very much need the other in order to heal.

The two are brought together, most appropriately, by their daughter. Sherrie, unbeknownst to her, talks in her sleep and Minnie, after seeing Jack slipping out of her mother’s window one night—he has snuck in there to watch her sleep—realizes the man her mother speaks of in her dreams is Jack. Minnie, a very self-possessed young lady, seeks out her father who then has no choice but to return her to her Sherrie’s home. Once Jack realizes he is Minnie’s father, he and Sherrie embark on a new relationship, one in which they slowly overcome the damage of their shared past as they, unable to stay away from one another, again become lovers.

Jack and Sherrie see their history very differently. What Jack defines as criminal, Sherrie defines as bliss. My favorite scene in the book is when Sherrie sneaks into Jack’s bedroom, determined to banish their past once and for all. He tells her she’s unable to see him for the monster he was.

“I raped you,” he reminded her. “Repeatedly.”

“No, you didn’t.”

How could she sound so calm, so certain? “I was there,” he recalled, sounding as calm as she did when he was screaming inside. “I know what I did.”

“I was there, too,” she reminded him. “And you never forced me. Never hurt me. You gave me unimaginable pleasure.”

“I coerced you. Threatened you. Forced your compliance. That is rape. And if I thought falling down on my knees and begging your forgiveness would do any good, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.” Sherrie considered his words for a moment, before shaking her head. “I don’t want you begging my forgiveness. I just want you to forgive yourself.”

Sherrie not only wants Jack to forgive himself—she wants him to feel worthy to love her. She is his and he is hers. She thinks,

He was all she’d desired, ever. Even from her first sight of the filthy, cruel pirate who’d demanded a devil’s bargain from her, the connection had been there. Maybe they should have started out better, differently, but she knew that even if their first meeting had been in a ballroom, even if their courtship had been tame and proper, they would have still ended up here, in bed, making passionate, possessive love. They were meant to be, mated, dark and light halves combined to make a whole. Each held the completing part of the other’s soul. Karma. Fate. Destiny.

I found their story riveting. I admired the way the past and the present meld in the book—the pacing of the love story is perfect. I also enjoyed the non-romance plot in the novel. Jack—who was a spy for England when he met Sherrie in Malaysia—has been asked by Scotland Yard to help investigate Sherrie’s next door neighbor, the wily Lord Gordon Summers. Summers, a self-styled expert on all things Asian, is creating a cult full of mindless followers all of whom think he’s interested in their spiritual betterment. Summers, a very bad man, is far more interested in power and controlling those who have it. This element of the novel is compelling and shows an interesting time in Victorian society.

I really liked this book. I see Jack and Sherrie as Sherrie does. She believes she fell in love with him from the moment he freed her from the slavers’ cage. He may have had all the power and he did indeed take her. He didn’t tell her the truth about whom he was or why he was in Malaysia. But when he tells her, he acted as he did because,

“I didn’t tell you because if I had I couldn’t keep you. Jack wouldn’t have been able to make love to you, and I desperately needed to make love to you from the first moment I saw you.”

Sherrie (and I) believe he loved her from the start as well. What Jack—and others—see as an unforgivable abuse of sexual control, Sherrie (and I) see as the start of a beautiful love affair. For me, this book was a lovely A- read.

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I loved romances when, back in the mid 70’s, in junior high, I read every Barbara Cartland novel I could check out from the library. Then, thanks to a savvy babysitter, I got my hands on the hot stuff. To this day I can remember how astonishingly steamy I found Rosemary Rogers’ Sweet Savage Love. I abandoned romance when I went to college and didn’t pick one up again until 2007 when I got my first Kindle. Since then, I’ve read countless romances; loved many, liked more, hated some. Most of what I read is historical and contemporary romance, but I’m open to almost any genre. I like my books to have sizzle, wit, and plots that make sense. I’d take sexy over sweet any day. I’m a sucker for smart heroes and smart-mouthed heroines.
When not reading or writing about reading, or wishing I could rule the world, I’m meddling in the lives of my kids–I have four, ages 17 to 21–, managing my husband’s practice, doing bossy volunteer work, and hanging out with Dr. Feelgood.

Comments

Great review Dabney. I’m tempted to pick this one up now. I’ve read a few bodice rippers in my time – I’m not sure I could cope with Sweet Savage Love now but I still have my The Flame and the Flower and Stormfire is one of my favourite Old Skool (TM Smart Bitches) romances. My taste has changed a bit over the years and forced seduction/rape, which used to get a pass from me (mainly because when I was in my early teens I frankly didn’t understand it to be what it was) probably would not now. But I can see from your review that what makes this one perhaps a bit different, is that Jack himself identifies himself as a rapist and this is obviously a big issue for him. I can’t recall Steve ever thinking anything like that in regard to Ginny! :) I think I’ll check this one out.

@Kaetrin: Perhaps more importantly, I don’t think Ms. Rogers would have thought women would have found it sexy for Steve to apologize. This book, published in 1991, reflects a much more progressive attitude toward female sexuality.

At $3.99, this book will be mine. Excellent review and I think I lean more towards the sexy side of forced seduction (given the right situation, which from the review, sounds like this would be to my taste).

I love Susan Sizemore’s Primes and have enjoyed quite a number of her stand-alone novels in other sub-genres. I picked this one up a couple of weeks ago, when it was mentioned here and it went on sale. Now I need to find me some time to read it.

I’d rather read about a hero behaving ‘badly’ and then having to come to terms with what he’s done than a hero who behaves in an unrealistically considerate way that would only happen in a romance novel.

I read this one when it first came out in 1999 and loved it, then reread it a couple times since then (though not in recent years) and still enjoyed it. There is something very passionate and fun about it and I also view it as an homage to the bodice rippers of the seventies and early eighties, one in which the characters (heroine esp.) grow up. I also really enjoyed the dual-timeline narrative, something that felt very fresh in 1999.

At the same time, I do feel that I wish Jack’s moral ambiguity and his guilt over it had been explored more. Saying that they loved each other from the start and that Jack couldn’t let her go doesn’t give me complete closure. I needed a better sense of why he was finally able to move on from his guilt since I think his love for Sherrie would not necessarily make him less guilty for what he did to her. Still, I thought their relationship dynamic was quite compelling.

Also, the Asian villain makes me uncomfortable, and I found Minnie a little too precocious.

It is one of those books that is a great deal of fun if I don’t think too much about it but I wish that Sizemore had been more thoughtful and gone deeper in her characterizations because the premise (bodice ripper characters outgrow their early immaturity and have to face the music for their youthful mistakes) had so much potential.

Nice review! This was just rec’ed to me on here the other day. I don’t usually purchase my ebooks from BN or Amazon on general principle, but I’m making the exception for this (it’s not available at my usual Books On Board and I just haven’t bothered with Kobo yet).

Just ordered it after reading the review. :) I came to Romance Land late, so the only bodice ripper I’ve read is Whitney My Love. We’ll see if this one erases that one from my brain. I hope it does. This hero sounds much more palatable.

@Arani: That’s my error, not Ms. Sizemore’s. She talks about the Malay and I just assumed they were from Malaysia. But when I went and searched the book, there is mentions only of Asia and the Malay. Bad Dabney!

Thanks for a great review – I am from the era that read the forced seductions and I don’t mind it either when it is handled well. That can be very tricky as well as subjective. I added this to my growing pile of TBR books, and have discovered a new author. Her paranormal romances look good too!

I recently re-read Courtney Milan’s novella “This Wicked Gift”, which also deals with a situation in which the hero mistakenly believes he has forced/coerced the heroine into sex. What made that story work for me is that the hero had to come to terms with the fact that he had sex with a woman he believed was unwilling. There’s a priceless bit of dialogue, which I’ll be unable to reproduce from memory, in which the heroine says, No, you weren’t dishonoring me, but you *believed* that you were, and so you dishonored yourself.

For me, the problem isn’t solved by the hero accepting that the heroine was actually into it, and so it wasn’t rape. It needs to be solved by the hero coming to grips with why he was willing to commit what he believed to be rape. I don’t know if the “forgiving himself” in this book gets to that point – if it does, I think I’d like it. Can anyone who’s read it shed light on that?

(The Milan story is super-awesome, by the way, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.)

I’m not sure I completely understood how and why Jack got over his guilt for what he did to Sherrie and the resulting depression. He definitely did feel guilty for it (I remember he had a gun to his head at one point), but why he forgave himself is something I would have liked more of an explanation for.

I remember discussing it with a friend at the time I first read the book (a dozen years ago now!) and my friend said she thought he got over it for the sake of his and Sherrie’s daughter, who needed him. But if so I would have liked to have seen that moment of self-forgiveness portrayed.

OTOH, Jack when in his Cullum mode was a pretty shady character — he lived the life of a pirate (though that isn’t exactly what he was) and IIRC, was also addicted to opium. He played the role of an unsavory character and in the process he became that unsavory character.

So in that way, Jack’s forcing Sherrie to sleep with him part and parcel of who he was when they met the first time, moreso than what happened in Courtney Milan’s novella. Milan’s hero wanted to be a better person when the sex took place, whereas with Jack, on the surface at least, he seemed to revel in his amoral aspect. Years later, when he was out of that milieu and off the opium, he did feel very guilty for his actions back then.

At least, that’s what I remember. It’s been several years since I last read the book — maybe someone who has read it more recently can weigh in too.

@Janine: Yeah, you’re right – part of what makes the Milan story so tough (and so good) is that the hero, in that very moment, knows that what he’s doing is wrong but he chooses to do it anyway. Hm. Well, I’ll probably check this out, because the character arc does sound interesting even if probably not fully satisfying to me in that way.

@cbackson: I hope you enjoy it. I’m very curious to hear what people think of this aspect of the book, so I’m hoping more who have read it will post. It’s an interesting book to me because I loved it when it came out and although I don’t love it to the same degree I still have warm feelings toward it.

@Janine:@cbackson: I am sad to see the Milan book is only available as part of a Christmas compilation.

I think, by the way, that Jack does have a moment of partial self-forgiveness when he realizes Sherrie has truly forgiven him. It’s also interesting that, in the forgiveness scene, Sherrie points out she was never a lady and that she loved the crazy and dangerous time they spent together in their youth. I think part of his forgiveness is that she makes him see she loved the shadiness of him and their time together. I think his peace with his past comes over several days and it’s based on how strong Sherrie is in her insistence she loved all he did to her. It may not be something another woman would forgive, but I think she is sincere in her absolution of him.

@Dabney: That novella was pubbed by Harlequin but Milan also has a self pubbed one I really enjoyed, Unlocked, available as a standalone for just 99 cents.

Re. The Price of Innocence, you’re probably right. It’s been a long time since I read it. But I think what cbackson is getting at is that sometimes even if the heroine forgives the coercion, it’s not so easy for the reader. It mostly worked for me in TPOI because Sherrie and Jack were so obsessed with one another.

@Janine: I loved Unlocked. I liked the novels in that series as well–my favorite is the first, Unveiled.
I see what you and cbackson are saying. It’s an interesting conundrum–do you take the word of fictional characters or do you hold fast to your own values? For me, if a character’s perceptions are well-written, as I felt they were in TPoI, I’m more likely to let go of my own beliefs. Ms. Sizemore made me believe her characters really felt the way they did. I think that’s a big part of why I’m so able to get over Jack’s behavior.

It’s an interesting conundrum–do you take the word of fictional characters or do you hold fast to your own values? For me, if a character’s perceptions are well-written, as I felt they were in TPoI, I’m more likely to let go of my own beliefs. Ms. Sizemore made me believe her characters really felt the way they did. I think that’s a big part of why I’m so able to get over Jack’s behavior.

She made me believe it too — I had an easier time getting over Jack’s actions for that reason as well. I would have loved more exploration of the characters psychology in this book, but I’m the kind of reader who really enjoys that.

@Janine: @cbackson: I just read This Wicked Gift which I loved. William is so different than Jack/Collum–he comes at Lavinia from such a place of loss whereas Collum is coming from a place of want then take. The stories are so different. Jack does owe Sherrie an apology–he did wrong her. William, despite his thinking he did, didn’t wrong Lavinia.

And can I just say what a fabulous writer Ms. Milan can be? That’s three works of hers I’d put in my top hundred most beloved romances list. Thanks, cbackson, for pointing the story out to me.

I grew up at the same time you did, Dabney, and have a similar romance reading history. Sweet Savage Love was one of the first romances I read. At the time bodice rippers didn’t bother me at all, and anyway, they were pretty much the only romances available (other than those horrible Barbara Cartlands) so that’s what I read. After being away from the genre for many years, it’s amazing how much it has changed (for the better).

These days, I’m fairly appalled at what I used to read (and enjoy), nonetheless, this book immediately caught me eye and I downloaded a sample when it was on sale a few weeks ago. I finally read the sample last week, then was bummed I’d missed the sale although it’s still at a decent price. I’m off to buy it now. Still not planning to reread any of the old school bodice rippers, but I think I’m going to like this one.

@cbackson: I really liked it. I’d just read a stinker of a book and it was like having my joy in romance returned to me by an infusion of great prose. I loved Lavinia–she’s got to be one of the best heroines in historical romance ever. I wish it were published as a singleton so I could recommend it on my blog–I thought the other two stories in the collection were weak.

I’ll come back and read the comments after I’ve read the book (to preserve a few spoilers) but I just wanted to say I really enjoyed your review and I bought it on the spot. Which I don’t often do. I’m reading a OOP Trad that I am really slogging through because there’s some nasty stuff between the heroine and her step-father and then the husband starts throwing his weight around. A massive mis-understanding — I hope — between the h/h — but some books are just hard to read, altho I’m a sucker for angst. It’s “The Reluctant Bride” by Irene Saunders.

OMG I just wanted to drop in and say THANK YOU again! I just tore through this book in a day and I loved it. It totally, completely hit the spot for me.

I am not all that familiar with bodice rippers and the era of forced seduction in romance. Granted, I cut my teeth on some when I was a pre-teen sneaking through my mom’s collection. But I didn’t really come into romance wholly until the past few years, with a few stints on and off in the 90s ;) That said, I think I was bracing myself for something a little more rapey than what was depicted in tPoI? What I got was… mmmyeah, it’s questionable because she was coerced, but *she* didn’t see it as rape. What I really, really loved was that that blurry line was actually addressed in conversation between Jack and Sherrie, and that’s where *he* is the one to point out that “coercion = rape.” And yeah, I agree – the characterizations were really good. Jack’s angst and depression were palpable. I also enjoyed Millie’s role in the story.

Just – thanks for a great recommendation. This is in my re-read shelf, now. :)

Ohhhhhh – I remember reading this book years and years ago when it first came out, and absolutely LOVED it! It was just great fun: you got your bodice-reading thrill with the flashbacks but then got your own guilt assuaged by the political correctness (in a good way) of the present day scenes ;-).

More seriously, I really felt by the end that the couple were actually in love and not just acting out a dark obsessions. I loved the first that you could trace this from the tone of their sex scenes – one of the few sex scenes that I remember from a decade of reading them…

If memory serves, this book was given quite a low grade on AAR at the time, due in part to the whole “forced seduction” thing and it was one of the few instances I can remember when I disagreed with a low grade – I’m a lot pickier than most reviewers so it’s normally the other way round for me.

I downloaded this from amazon (the price was worth trying) after reading your review, and loved it–I also downloaded Susan Sizemore’s No Promises, but have not read it yet. Thank you for the great (spot on) review and I’m now heading over to look for The Wicked Gift.

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